Structures for covering surfaces or voids take on numerous forms and arrangements. Typically, covers are used to conceal and/or protect underlying surfaces. Rarely, however, are such covers capable of concealing and/or protecting as well as for bearing loads placed thereupon. An example for illustrative purposes are pool covers used to cover at or below-grade swimming pools. Most commonly, swimming pool covers are fabricated from a relatively flexible material, and may be deployed into a covering condition through, for example, unwinding the cover material from a roll. Flexible swimming pool covers are widely utilized for a variety of purposes, including retention of thermal energy in the pool water, prevention of debris collection in the pool, and aesthetics. Such pool covers, however, are not load-bearing to an extent to which the covers may be used as a floor surface to walk upon.
Other example covers include simple floor covering of various design and arrangement, such as carpeting or the like. Such floor coverings, however, also fail to provide a load-bearing surface in a self-supporting manner. In other words, such floor coverings rely upon the load-bearing support of the underlying floor, and are therefore not self-supporting of a load placed thereupon.
The term “load” as used herein is intended to mean a load representative of, for example, a weight of at least one adult human, such as a load density of 100 pounds per square foot. The term “self-supporting” as used herein is intended to mean a structure which is capable of supporting a load without substantially deviating from an unloaded configuration, without structural damage thereto, and/or without supportive aid from another structure throughout at least a substantial portion of a load support area of the load-bearing structure.
An example load-bearing cover is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,355, the entire content of which being incorporated herein by reference. The cover of U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,355 incorporates a plurality of hinged panels that may be selectively deployed into a covering configuration and retracted into a compact storage configuration. One embodiment of U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,355 provides a compact storage arrangement in the form of a folded “accordion” type arrangement.
A compact panel storage arrangement contemplated by the present invention involves separating and stacking the panels in close proximity to one another. In one embodiment, the separated and stacked panels may be substantially vertically stacked with each panel remaining in a substantially horizontal orientation. Other compact storage orientations, however, are contemplated as being obtainable through the system of the present invention. It has been found that a separated and stacked panel storage arrangement may be preferable in certain applications over the “accordion” style arrangement described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,355. Accordingly, it is a principle object of the present invention to provide a load-bearing cover system involving a plurality of panels that may be coupled to one another and deployed as a cover, and may further be at least partially decoupled and stored in a compact stacked arrangement.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a deployable and retractable load-bearing cover which automatically couples and decouples adjacent panels in the deployment and retraction processes.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a load-bearing cover that may be selectively retracted into a compact storage arrangement.